Just Equations founder and executive director Pamela Burdman was quoted in an exclusive interview with The Hechinger Report featured the Just Equations’ report, The Limits of Calculus: Revisiting the Role of Math Education in College Admissions.
The calculus track often serves to separate rich and poor students, sorting middle schoolers between an accelerated path to calculus and a slower path that does not include calculus.
So why do more than half of U.S. high schools offer calculus and why do so many students choose to take it? Many critics point their fingers at college admissions. A new survey of more than 130 college admissions officers, released Dec. 9, demonstrates how calculus has become a proxy for academic rigor. Even though 95 percent of the respondents agreed that calculus isn’t necessary for all students, 74 percent put the College Board’s Advanced Placement calculus course among the top four math courses that carry the most weight. Almost a third of respondents said calculus gives a student an edge in admissions.
Some admissions officers said they felt pressure from university faculty to give preference to candidates with calculus. Giving extra weight to calculus is a “deeply ingrained practice,” Burdman said, and that because admissions officers have to answer to a range of audiences, they are cautious about change.
Changing hearts and minds inside college admissions departments may take time. Burdman says that if selective institutions can show that students who don’t take calculus do well in college, then colleges will have “more confidence” in admitting students who take alternatives, such as statistics.
Until then, students struggling with limits and derivatives may just have to wait until the evidence adds up.
For more insights on the role of math in ensuring educational equity, subscribe to Just Equations’ newsletter.
